Whats the latest on the changes to VRT commission is it soon
I believe that the changes have been canned as of present. I think offically HQ will want to be worrying about âbiggerâ things in the organisation eg. Getting flying/gliding back up.
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Little or no evidence of that happening. If a post on here the other week was correct theyâre spending time looking into how to get disabled people as staff ⌠talk about fiddling while Rome burns.
If they spent half as much time on flying and gliding as it has been âofflineâ the situation would have been resolved and cadets would be getting the experience they were told and or read about and deserve. This to me means alternatives and not through the deadweights in the RAF set up which has failed.
The âpositionâ about VRT is unimportant in terms of the operation of the Corps, UNLESS a âdowngradingâ means HQAC etc lose their perceived âcontrolâ and canât batter Officers with threats about disciplinary measures and so on.
What I have heard a couple of times now in regard to this is the term âSooner than you might thinkââŚ
i received the following earlier this week:
[quote]
Her Majesty has agreed that a new Queenâs Commission for the Cadet Forces will be introduced replacing the current VR(T) Commission for the ACO and the Class B Reserve Army Commission for the ACF. The Sea Cadets will now have a commission which previously they lacked.
The details of the terms and conditions of the new commission are yet to be agreed and a Regional Commandant has been tasked with representing the ACO interests in these discussions.
This is the first new commission to be granted in 250 years and therefore this demonstrates the high regard that the cadet forces are held. It is appreciated that they will be many questions and concerns over the impact that these changes will have but at present there is no detail so we all need to wait further information as and when it can be released.
The plan at present to introduce the new commission on 01 Apr 17 for those being appointed after that date and existing VR(T) officers will transfer to the new commission at some point in the future. The details of this transition are yet to be worked out. The details will have to be worked through in a fairly short timeframe so we can expect to have updates in the not too distant future.[/quote]
Happening in the new year. Has royal approval. Essentially the royal petition is removed from our remit. CAC is the top of our petition. No one (to service) knows what the insignia will be. It will be Cadet Commission. We will still wear same ranks. It canât be removed from those who have it. At renewal of service will be required to switch over (be interesting to see legally how they do that). Big talks about this seeing if should just affect new entrants. Wexo will be only ones in the VRT. Army pushing very hard overall to get it through. SSC arenât bothered. Edit to add: CAC has a foot of comaplaints in height on her desk, all apparently people we shouldnât have as staff, who are all threatening royal petition âjust to stick one to the orgâ. Also, resignations and retention of rank. Anyone who has resigned in the last year hasnât officially had their confirmation of resignation because they are worried how it will affect them.
Donât ask for my source or proof. I donât reveal them and nor do I have anything hard copy.
I wonder will be a change or relinquish when it comes to extensions for current VRTs?
If the latter I wonder what the impact will be, if people say no thanks? There arenât enough officers generally to do what is needed at the moment, or there might but not in the right places.
While it makes no difference in terms of what we do as instructors in a youth organisation (yes thatâs what we are nothing more and more importantly nothing less), if it makes all uniformed staff essentially civilians in a uniform, how will that affect the pressure they put (or try to put) on us, because we are RAF Officers. I would like to see a more consensual approach to how people are treated as volunteers, ie nothing outside of kiddy-fiddler checks compulsory, which leaves us largely to get on with what we do and invariably join to do.
I donât see why WExOs, ARCs, RCs et al, retain a rank and wear a uniform when all they are civilians in the civil service. They may have been officers but no more.
If it doesnât change the way we are treated, why make the change at all? We need to see some benefit from it.
Because the monarchy have made representations about the number of royal petitions. Donât quote me on the figures, but they are up some 250% in 10 years. Mostly because some 2 year service VRT gets stuffy because they get kicked out for doing wrong (pick one)
a) caution for possession of controlled substance
b) causes injury to cadet through command negligence
c) uses their squadron to bankroll his company by supplying products at above market rate
We donât need to see any benefits. We donât have a union, we have little rights. It wonât affect what we do, or how we do it, so our benefit is âno change to what we love to doâ and that means we carry on. Some people who love the status and the uniform more than the sense of giving will get all stuffy and will boorishly take umbridge at it but thereâs no point.
This of course means the SNCO into VRT goes up the swanny sadly. Thanks to chopper officers complaining* and the army who are jealous of our status we have been boxed it. I believe we have done OK out of the arguments, as there was talk of everyone becoming SNCO ranks (army) with officers only at Command level (RFCA double-dippers) although it wasnât clear if this was an attempt at a wild left field suggestion to make everyone recall in horror and accept the second option!
- there are of course legitimate complaints. Ones which get wing commanders, WEXOs and RC into trouble but sadly never really work out for the complainant.
With those three examples, they have to be very, very specific and relate to at most 2 or 3 in each example. I donât know why people would âcomplainâ, if they felt aggrieved for those sort of reasons, leave itâs not that important.
Why in a volunteer organisation should you feel the need to have rights or a union? Feelings like that only come as you feel you are being put upon. OK itâs a volunteer position, but people keep on doing things because they believe in the end product. It would be nice that apart from a DBS nothing else is a must or have to do. Everything we do as sqn cdrs is to appease some invented regulation and or metronomic/robotic box-ticker, be that on SMS or on bits of paper, thus keeping the box tickers in a job.
I never saw any benefit to individuals or the organisation of SNCO VRT. It would have only meant HQAC having more clout when dealing with them.
So what about links to the RAF
Do we really think that the RAF cares?
The ACO are crying out for âofficersâ do we think a cadet forces commission is more appealing and
make people want to go through all the selection criteria to acheive a nonsense
If I were joining the ACO now and wanted to take up a management position and to eventually run my own unit, I would not be concerned in the slightest whether the bit of paper that comes along with the rank is an RAF one or an ACO one. I would be surprised if that would be any different for the majority of new commission applicants.
My stated position has generally been in favour of distancing my role as an RAF-sponsored youth worker from the actual working military and in that respect I fought against the plan to move SNCO/WO into the VR(T). It would still have made very little, if any, practical difference to the way we all work but I am very much in favour of a clear delineation between the Cadet Forces and the Regular and Reserve Forces.
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The ACO might be crying out for officers, but people who are obsessed with fripperies like the nature of their commission are not people the ACO needs to hear that cry.
The officer crisis has nothing to do with status, or rights to petition, or who salutes who - its an HQAC formulated crisis caused by the fact that being an OC is such hard and overwhelming work that no one wants to do it.
Changing, or not changing, the commission will have no effect on that, only reducing the amount of crap that an OC has to deal with will change that.
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[quote=âangus, post:14, topic:2647, full:trueâ]
The ACO might be crying out for officers, but people who are obsessed with fripperies like the nature of their commission are not people the ACO needs to hear that cry.
The officer crisis has nothing to do with status, or rights to petition, or who salutes who - its an HQAC formulated crisis caused by the fact that being an OC is such hard and overwhelming work that no one wants to do it.
Changing, or not changing, the commission will have no effect on that, only reducing the amount of crap that an OC has to deal with will change that.[/quote]
Hammer, nail, hit.
The job of Sqn Cdr would attract a hefty salary with some pleasant perks in the outside world, given that the Sqn Cdr is all things to all men, women and children under their charge and the community at large. HQAC stick they fingers in their ears, shut their eyes and go la la la la, they exhibit zero respect for volunteer staff.
You can understand why people turn the offer down. Would I want to be a sqn cdr coming into the organisation today, no and that has nothing to how you are badged/titled, just how angus describes. TBPH if anyone who is staff on a sqn and sees what the CO has to do and still wants it, it is a self-inflicted injury. Not one of the SNCOs or CIs on our sqn wants to commission. I think again this begs the question will we go the way often seen in the ACF of SNCOs running sqns?
People are bullied into commands more and more often frequently and if your heartâs not really in it to begin with and or you see it as a stepping stone to the wasteland of Wing Staff, enough said. There is also the aspect that when things are going well itâs easy, but it only takes one or two staff to leave or an exodus of older cadets and it soon turns round. Iâve been in this situation, itâs not fun and there is no support from anywhere, as to take a member of staff from another sqn just puts them in the same predicament and we all know that getting new people in and to stay is nigh on impossible. Wing and HQACâs minions still expect all the BS done and complied with.
I agree, it no longer does us many favours.
Will the new commission have a new specific Cadet Forces application and process?
I can see this being an afterthought and we end up with the usual charlie foxtrot of everyone doing their own thing and getting in a mess.
Will it mean ditching OASC? If so what will happen to the people at OASC? It has been commented to me that when attending OASC the staff there almost implore people to get more people to apply, what does it matter to them how many people apply for VRT Commissions?
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The driver for the change is to remove petitioning and redress layers and to remove CFAV from the service complaints system.
This system was never meant to cover CFAV and on the RAF side, is because its swamped with no doubt valid complaints from volunteer staff in a system which does not meet the needs of the organisation.
Consider if the service complaint goes upwards and outside the ACO just how many people in the wider RAF have a complete understanding of all the nuances of how the organisation actually runs against what it says at times on paper.
It makes for a slow process as these people have to do quite a bit of research.
I do have moral concerns about people doing a hobby being able to lose people their jobs or effect their careers with no detrimental effect on them as the complainant if the complaint is judged to be vexatious.
This causes the free for all in complaints I feel as you can put them down with impunity to try to settle scores.
This does then dilute the genuine complainant and creates the impression that you can whine at every decision that does not go you way.
A further view would be that addressing the problems at the root cause by working to improve the management of volunteers to reduce the level of complaints might be energy better extended?
Kist a thought!
Without VRT at OASC they have a significant reduction in workâŚ
Nothing has been mentioned about OASC changing, but how ironic would it be that we brought our Commissioning process in-line with the RAF only for the RAF to be removed from the Commission.
A lot of people have said it wonât make any difference day-to-day, which is true, but will it make a wider difference for SOME aspects of what we MIGHT do? I am thinking of civilian armorers not being able to move ammo and rifles, entitlement to use the mess on stations, membership of clubs and associations of the RAF etc. I am sure there are some VRT who are members of RAF associations, take part in RAF sponsored events and represent the RAF.
If there is a change coming it needs to be RAF wide, not ACO wide and it needs to be considered and thought through in detail, not a knee-jerk reaction.
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The law of unintended consequences comes to mind.
Being an RAF officer on a RAF station always helps especially where weapons are concerned. It wasnât that long ago the our uniformed cousins the SNCO were stopped from drawing weapons. Only officers can be inventory holders due to accountability.
So much for being one big happy RAF family. Going to get rid of the children and their carers.
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How many complaints are about the parent organisation and how many are about the ATCs processes etc.
It would be good to have a broad synopsis of what sort of things are being complained about.